Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2007 May 8

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[edit] May 8

[edit] AP US History Exam

What are key topics to know? How far into the modern era will the exam go? What are expert's predictions for the essays this year on the AP United States History exam?


[edit] Early hominins?

Which hominin ancestor of humans is believed to be the first to use language? what about the first to wear clothes? first to create art?

Thanks! --Sonjaaa 00:11, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

As far as language is concerned, I believe that there is considerable disagreement as to which of our ancestors was the first to use "language" as we understand it. Our article on language suggest that the extremes are (at the "far" end) two million years ago (coinciding with Homo habilis), and (at the near end) 40,000 years ago (during the time of our own species, Homo sapiens). This tallies roughlt with my own recollection (from various anthropology courses), but I'll see if I can't find a good source somewhere... Carom 00:54, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Scholars who think language did not fully evolve until about 40,000 years ago (among modern Homo sapiens) believe that the evolution of language is a likely explanation for the Upper Paleolithic Revolution, which also included the development of artwork. A recent study of the genetics of lice suggests that the regular use of clothing also dates to the time of Homo sapiens, between 30,000 and 115,000 years ago. Marco polo 01:32, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
From Art, "The oldest art objects in the world: a series of tiny, drilled snail shells about 100000yrs old, were discovered in a South African cave, see Art of South Africa." If the date is right then that is probably Homo sapiens. Of course, many species have various sorts of sexual selection displays which are basically what we would identify as "art" if humans made them, so it's a question of definition in part. --24.147.86.187 01:42, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Be aware that what art critics count as art does not fit well with how art actually manefests itself. So an ornamented axe may not be art in the eye's of an art critic, but I don't see any reason to think that it isn't art (it was ornamented to display the maker's craftsmenship or to express the maker's thoughts).--droptone 03:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Meeting minutes

Is it necessary to record the names of the mover [proposer] and seconder of a motion that is to be put? In the event of the call for a division, I understand that the names of the "pro's" and the "con's" are recorded. Signed203.122.201.228 00:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who is the speechwriter for Queen Elizabeth II ?

Or does she write them herself. She expresses her thoughts in a clear, concise and eloquent manner. Admittedly, she's had a lot of practice.Ronbarton 01:26, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The Royal Household is now hiring a press secretary. Surely they have a speechwriter or two. In fact, I would think that it would be one of the most prestigious and competitive posts for a speechwriter in the United Kingdom, so it is not surprising that the queen's speeches are good. Marco polo 01:52, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Here it says that the queen's private secretary prepares her speeches. Apparently this is Sir Robin Janvrin. Marco polo 01:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
The Queen's Speech at the opening of Parliament is given to her by the incoming Prime Minister. —Tamfang 03:35, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
This could be interesting if the incoming PM is opposed to the monarchy. I picture a speech full on tongue twisters. StuRat 06:29, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
If we'd ever had such a PM, that would be interesting. But then anyone who managed to get elected on an openly republican manifesto would presumably be intending to abolish the monarchy anyway. 'my government intends to throw me out on my ear' Algebraist 10:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
It must have been interesting when the separatist Parti Québécois was governing Quebec. The lieutenant governors from 1966-96 were all former federal Cabinet ministers and presumably dead-set against separatism, but were supposed to read throne speeches that I guess would promote a separatist agenda. This, I think, is an odd feature of the Westminster system. -- Mwalcoff 03:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Useless weapons

At what point in history did the useless weapon of choice for military officers change from the sword to the pistol? --67.185.172.158 04:59, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Define "useless", because swords and pistols have a very specific purpose.--Kirby♥time 05:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

In a combat situation in which the normal personal weapon is a rifle, neither a pistol nor a sword is much good at engaging the opponent at typical combat ranges. --67.185.172.158 05:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Not at typical combat ranges, no, but a pistol could still have it's uses, like when you are about to be overrun by the enemy and your rifle is out of ammo. Swords served a similar purpose before, but are now mainly only worn on ceremonial occasions. When each military unit of each country changed over will vary widely, but it seems to me most changed over somewhere around WW1. StuRat 06:23, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Also understand, the Officer is supposed to be leading, not fighting. The side arms of an officer serve for personal defense if overrun, or against mutiny. Also, swords are not "usless" when it takes a minute to reload your rifle. That being said, the Pistol became a side arm of choice during the 19th century as good revolvers became common. Close defense, 6 shots as opposed to long range one shot rifles. -Czmtzc 12:35, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Pistols were an important weapon for U.S. forces fighting Phillipino rebels in the early 20th century. Perhaps jungles and close range fighting and suicidal charges in which your lines are overrun are an area where pistols come in handy. In rolling countryside (like Gettysburg or wars fought on the plains of Europe)) where the enemy is in plain view for many hundred of yards there was time to reload a rifle. I have read that the lack of "stopping power" in pistols such as the 38 Colt was noted in this fighting; a fatally wounded highly motivated Moro rebel could last long enough to reach you and stab you if the pistol lacked the "knockdown" power and 8 round rapid fire capability of the M1911 Colt pistol. Edison 14:52, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, I believe that the original questioner is asking about ceremonial weapons, not useless weapons? When did a military officer’s ceremonial weapon become the pistol? S.dedalus 23:18, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I am not aware of any military where this has taken place, so I'd have to answer that question with "not yet." - Eron Talk 00:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I think the questioner wants to know about weapons that designate rank, too. For example, the sword, and particularly the saber, was a side arm of officers only, and therefore the presentation of it or seizing of it meant a significant defeat/capitulation. "I got your general's private blade, so I win." As late as WW1, officers might still have the saber. After that, though, yes, officers had a particular side arm as a designated part of their kits, and these became the symbols to seize/demand. The big souvenir hunting of WW2 among US and British infantry was the Luger, as that meant that you had not only gotten through combat, but you had gotten an officer. The ugly US service revolver doesn't appear to have much cachet. These things become "useless" in context, because they're standard issue for people who are not expected to be at the front line very often, who are not supposed to be expendable. Utgard Loki 14:19, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] British in Italy

I wonder if anyone can help me. My great-grandfather served with the British Army in France for most of the First World War, but was transfered to Italy in 1917. I've not been able to discover the reason for this. Could someone please provide me with a historical context? Thanks. J. S. Jones Judithspencer 07:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

For a general context please look at the page on the Italian Campaign. The short answer is that the Italian Army was exhausted and mutinous after years of gruelling and futile offensives in battle after battle on the Isonzo front. To help bolster a new attack by their Austrian allies, the Germans moved several divisions from the Eastern Front, following the failure in July 1917 of the Russian Galician offensive. In October the two armies began their assault, which resulted in a serious defeat for the Italians at the Battle of Caporetto. With the whole front in danger of collapsing the Allies rushed troops in November from the Western Front, British among them, to shore-up the Italian defences. The enemy advance was duly halted just short of Venice. For the British contribution here you should look at The British Army in Italy, 1917-1918, by J and J Wilks. Clio the Muse 08:00, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why history?

What is the point of studying history? Apart, that is, from teaching it or writing books about it. If we just forgot history, what practical difference would it make? Nobody seems to act on the "lessons of history". Even religions don't seem to attach any importance to factual support, or lack of it. I grant that some aspects might be interesting to some people, but is it of any practical use?--Shantavira 08:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Now that's definitely a question for Clio the Muse!137.138.46.155 08:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your confidence, 137! All of my intellectual instincts are that of an empiricist, though, and I generally avoid answering questions of this kind, which call for speculation and opinion on this, that or the other. As a candidate for a doctorate in history, as person who has already published on a number of historical topics, am I really intellectually or emotionally equipped to give a meaningful response to a question of this nature? Besides, is any answer really required? For the question itself, it seems to me, is largely self-referential, already containing, in an age-old rhetorical fashion, its own answer. What practical use is history? Think about it: what value or 'practical use' is there in anything; why think, why act, why believe, why write? If all of our intellectual life is to be reduced to a material and utilitarian calculus, then we might as well forget about poetry, literature, music, painting and philosophy, none of which have any practical value, as well as history. Why do I study history, why do I think it is important? Because I love the subject: I have as long as I can remember, and I offer no better excuse than that. Shantavaria may be right; maybe it serves no purpose, and maybe it really is all 'bunk', in the words of Our Ford, the great material God. We could, of course, trade history quotes for history quotes, some hostile and some favourable. My own 'leitmotiv', my guide and my recurrent theme, are the words of Gustav Flaubert, who said that Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times. So, how to I conclude this? I can only do so by making by own feelings as plain as I can, quoting the words of another writer on an unrelated subject, but pertinent, notwithstanding; And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it! And God Bless Us, Every One. Clio the Muse 09:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Well you are our resident historian, and your study of history has been of much practical use to many users of this reference desk (137 under his shiny new username of Cyta 10:03, 8 May 2007 (UTC))
Welcome, Cyta. You have clearly anticipated my suggestion! (see the Edward III thread above). Clio the Muse 10:18, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

There are definitely some rather practical lessons to be learned from history. To take the subset of military history, for example, we can get a clear example in the initial US invasion of Iraq in 2003. The US used a classic flanking maneuver, which the Iraqis seemed not able to anticipate. Had they studied military history better, they could have put up a much better defense. Also, be sure to look at the long term when studying history. There once was a time, for example, when a conquering army would loot, burn, rape, and enslave each defeated city. Very few follow this model now, hopefully having learned from history that this frequently leads to the demise of the conquerors. StuRat 09:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

If we 'just forgot history', then we would have achieved something no civilisation ever has, and which is not obviously possible. Everything we do is coloured to some extent by our history, and there always plenty of people willing to advance historical or pseudohistorical arguments for some course of action; for example, continuing on the Iraq theme, I recall GWB pointing to the 'lesson of history' telling us what happens when you appease dictators. My brother used to say (I think he got it from his tutor at Oxford) that since we can't avoid the study of history, we might as well do it well. Thus if we actually look at the history of Nazi Germany, we see a strong, self-proclaimed expansionist and rapidly militarising power, being appeased by being handed one of its neighbours, in stark contrast to the pre-invasion Iraqi situation. Algebraist 09:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
"When experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana The Life of Reason. Cliched, but true. Gandalf61 10:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Yes, some very recent military history might be useful. I am thinking of history more as stuff that happened before people can remember. I am using the word practical very broadly, and I don't agree that the arts, or even religion, have no practical use. The latter can (or did) at least keep people under some sort of control. And both can inspire humanity and even move us to achieve great things in terms of the way we relate to people and the world around us. Great works of art are as alive today as ever, and I don't consider them to be history. Perhaps when I think of history, I am thinking of it, almost by definition, as dead stuff that inspires no one. Perhaps it was just the way it was taught to me in school. I don't think philosophy was even mentioned!--Shantavira 10:42, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I can think of two "practical" uses of history:
1) History greatly extends personal experience as a guide to present and future action. Whenever we act, we stop to consider what happened the last time we tried something like this. History helps us immensely by giving us access to the experience of many people who have lived before us, some of them hundreds or thousands of years ago, so that we do not have to rely only on our limited individual life experience. If George W. Bush had seriously engaged with history as a guide to action, he would have seen that Iraq in 2002 was vastly different in many ways from Germany in 1938, such that the historical experience in Germany did not apply. More relevant historical guides to Iraq might have included the U.S. experience in Vietnam or the Syrian experience in Lebanon. What Bush's citation of history shows is in fact one of the misuses of history: The uncritical marshaling of bits of history for propagandistic purposes.
2) History allows us to understand present-day situations. Returning to the example of Iraq, rather than refer irrelevantly to the history of Germany in the 1930s, Bush would have done well to study the modern history of Iraq, which is one of colonialism, boundaries drawn without reference to regional ethnic and sectarian divisions, centuries of dominance by Sunni Arabs and oppression of the Shiite majority and Kurdish minority, the tribal nature of large sectors of Iraqi society, and so on. If Bush had studied this history, he would have understood the complexity of the country's politics and the impossibility of quickly establishing a stable and unified democracy. Iraq is a very clear case in which a knowledge of history would have been immensely useful.
Marco polo 13:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

It's also fun, and you can use historical tidbits to out-nerd people in trivia contests. And for me, when people haphazardly bandy about the word "crusade" these days and read books like the Da Vinci Code, they need people like me to tell them what really happened. (Unfortunately I am neither as eloquent as Clio, nor studying something so immediately relevant to the modern world.) Adam Bishop 16:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

For me, history is also fun, and deeply fascinating, but I focused above on Shantavira's question of how it is useful. Marco polo 16:18, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
At the risk of being obsequious and irrelevant, Adam, I cut and pasted your translation of an article on cochineal at the Language desk just for the strikingly fluent eloquence, so I don't know what you are being humble about. Obviously good writing in translation depends on the original text, but the translator must be capable of mirroring its qualities, which is no small feat. If you are indeed studying Latin, heaven help us if that should ever become irrelevant. The Mad Echidna 01:37, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh, thanks :) Latin is a required part of my program, although I don't really study it directly, I suppose. Adam Bishop 07:01, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

As widely revered historian Winston Smith once opined: "The apparent empiricism of historicism is merely an heuristic phenomenological invention resulting from the endemic polemicism and systemic revisionism produced for the mechanistic prevention and restriction of cataclysmic individualism; or not." dr.ef.tymac 16:13, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Graham Swift addresses this issue on several levels in the sublime, award-winning novel Waterland. --Dweller 16:20, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm suprised that no one mentioned this already: "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." - AMP'd 01:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I would have mentioned it if I hadn't forgotten it. :) JackofOz 02:13, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
History does not give any clear answers. Santayana's warning about repeating history is unfortunately false — even those who remember it are just as doomed to repeat it! In any case studying history is NOT about memorizing facts or knowing who was the winner at any given battle. The details are important, yes, but history is more than the details. People who study only details are poor historians; those who study only trivia are antiquarians. History is about an outlook, it is about an approach to the past, it is about believing that the world has a past and that knowing this past enriches your knowledge about the world. It is about thinking critically about the present and the future. Does it translate into a great material wealth? No, and it does not pretend to! Can it translate into better thinking about the world, potentially better policymaking, potentially better critical analysis? It can, but does not necessarily! I have to admit the one thing I have written that made me think long and hard about what it meant to be a historian — and what kind of historian — was Nietzsche's On the Use and Abuse of History for Life (which you can find online if you Google around); coupled with Foucault's counter-analysis, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History", is wonderful food for thought on this topic. --24.147.86.187 02:40, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Please note: feel free to remove this answer if it is too long; I won't be offended.
I often ponder the issue of what is the value of studying history, and although I haven't come up with anything terribly scholarly or original, I'll offer the results of years of curiosity.
Certainly the question is a relevant one, but we mustn't expect an all-encompassing answer. The simplest truth is that if there was an earth-shatteringly significant reason behind studying history, we would be unlikely to discover it by studying philosophy, for example. That is, we can best discover why we study history by studying history. Consequently, if we feel there are seeds of richness and intellectual depth within the discipline, we would be wise to unearth them, and see what they produce.
In my own experience, the search for historical truth is part of the search for meaning. It is for me an empirical outgrowth of philosophy. I want to know why certain things happen, and how, and what it all means. This is never to the exclusion of other displines, but always as part of an attempt to reconcile different threads of knowledge, and build an understanding of humanity as a whole.
One small example of how I applied this practically came when a friend was doing her honours thesis in cross-cultural psychology. She cited the fact that Americans are more elitist than Australians (in a specific, measurable sense that research questionnaires have proven), even though both nations have similar origins, sharing a British background. The British are relatively elitist in this sense, and not too far from the Americans, if I remember rightly. She then quoted an author who explained the apparent anomaly, saying that it was presumably because of a selection bias, where the colonists of America were more elitist than those of Australia. I had to explain the problem to her. The author she quoted had done a lot of research as an expert in his field, then offered a one-line platitude that covered a remarkable amount of historical ground without any effort at all. People seem to do this all the time in academia. They would do better to ponder other areas of learning, and see if they can all shed light on each other, rather than mastering one field and ignoring the rest. For the record, the class systems of America and Britain are not analogous, with status in America being determined more often by self-made wealth (at least as an ideal) whereas in Britain there are still clear remnants of an hereditary nobility. This suggests that explaining the origins of elitism in America, compared to (relative) egalitarianism in Australia, requires more than a default reference to selection bias. If it were that easy, then we would surely expect the American colonists to have exported the identical class system. This is an extremely big historical question, not a minor scientific matter.
This is not a terribly dramatic example, but it illustrates one use of history, that you can use it as a reference point for other knowledge. If other fields have any claim to generality, they stand or fall by whether they can illuminate human history in some meaningful way. This happens only rarely, so historians would usually rather trust the documentary approach, and submit to the tyranny of evidence. For me, the comparison between history and psychology is nevertheless enlightening, although usually only because it drives home how little I know about either.
Really, though, history is more useful as an intellectual training exercise. The mind becomes sharper through debating historical interpretations. It is no good just reading and acquiring factoids about people and places, which is mere general knowledge. So long as you participate in debates (within your own mind and with other scholars) you will improve, and your mind will grow. Of course this happens in other fields, especially philosophy, but some people have a talent for empirical research, and are better suited to history. In history it is hard for crackpots to flourish (there are exceptions) because historians are generally nailed to the facts, and can't escape into flights of fancy. This is important for the truly intelligent, who need to escape from the fanciful nature of most popular culture, and need to find other intelligent souls to engage with. We need something that naturally weeds out the wannabes and chatterboxes; that only rewards talent.
For this reason, I see history as a literary discipline. By that, I don't mean that history is "all interpretation", because clearly there are facts to which we must adhere. I mean that at its height, history involves the skill of a literary critic (or perhaps at times an art connoisseur) applied to the study of events and cultures of the past. This requires the greatest skill, and therefore only the talented can flourish. For example, I was reading a book on medieval architecture that analysed the way the Virgin Mary was portrayed in the small relief sculptures (sorry, don't know the exact name) in cathedrals and so on (ie. the little round sculpture thingies between the arches and so forth). The writer had discerned a noticeable progression across centuries, showing a change from a distant, iconic figure, to a more real, personal, and humble one, with her face downcast. This, she suggested, was owing to a change in the status of women, from being elevated in some way to becoming more servile (I don't remember the exact details, so please don't quote me). My point is that this is not something that would exactly leap out at you as you toured the great cathedrals of medieval Europe. The writer had to select this feature, observe its significance, and note the changes occurring across centuries, as well as interpret their meaning. This is remarkably hard, and would require patience, skill, and scholarly dedication. This is what I like about history: the intellectual richness. It is just a fascinatingly deep discipline.
So I hope I haven't waffled for too long, and hope I've made some sense along the way. :-) The Mad Echidna 03:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I love you all (well, most of you!) Clio the Muse 07:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The longest and most interesting threads are all about speculation, personal opinion, discussion, argumentation, and chatting. A.Z. 19:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] To hell or connacht

why was Cromwells conquest of Ireland so brutal and where do the words to hell or connacht come from. Martinben 11:22, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Oliver Cromwell's Roundhead party was militantly Protestant and committed to the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. This had been challenged by the Irish Rebellion of 1641, in which Catholics massacred Protestants. In Cromwell's day, many English people had a loathing tinged with racism toward the indigenous, mainly Catholic Irish. This, together with religious fanaticism and outrage at the Catholic massacres, brought a brutal response in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. Under the terms of the Act for the Settlement of Ireland of 1652, the Catholic landowners were exiled to the poor and relatively infertile province of Connacht and to County Clare. Any who resisted were to be executed. Hence the expression "To hell or Connaught". I expect that Clio will correct any errors I have made and amplify my skeletal response! (edited) Marco polo 13:23, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Not at all, Marco! One or two modifications, that's all! Anyway, here we go.
This was, and is, for Irish people a highly emotive issue. But, to be perfectly frank, Cromwell's campaign itself was no more brutal than many others of the day; and even the infamous massacres at Drogheda and the Wexford are nothing compared with the dreadful Sack of Magdeburg in 1631, during the Thirty Years War in Europe. Anyway, your first point of reference should be, as Marco indicates, the page on the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. The brutality of the campaign, such as it was, was the result of a number of preconceptions and misconceptions: that the Irish were savage and inferior to the English; that Catholics were inferior to Protestants and, combining both views, the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 was believed to have been accompanied by wholesale atrocities against Protestants, exaggerated by the propaganda of the day. However, the real hatred of Cromwell in Ireland comes less from his actions as a soldier, and much more from what followed after the English victory: namely the wholesale expropriation of Irish landowners. In 1652 the English Parliament passed the Act for the Settlement of Ireland. By this most of the best land of the island was awarded to English veterans of the New Model Army. Catholic landowners were confined to the less fertile lands to the west, in Connacht and Clare. Those who failed to vacate the confiscated land before 1 May 1654 were threatened with execution, from whence comes the expression To Hell or to Connaught. Clio the Muse 13:42, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
It's also important to remember the racism of the era. Even highly enlightened people like Philip Sidney wrote that they Irish were animals who hadn't the rights of human beings. The very same language that would later be used to justify genocide against the American Indian and continued repression of enslaved and liberated Africans in the US had been honed and employed in England. The issue of Catholicism was one part of the fury, but there was an additional one of race that we, at this remove, tend to forget. Utgard Loki 14:28, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WWII cessation of hostilities in Europe

In honour of the anniversary (see Wikipedia:Main Page, "On this day...", if you're looking today!), I heard Churchill's address to the nation replayed this morning on BBC radio. I was curious that the end of hostilities was being (future - it had yet to happen when Churchill spoke) announced as "1 minute past midnight". My first thought was that this was to avoid any possible confusion as to which day it was that fighting would end. However, the next thought was that 10pm would have done the job just as well; in fact better. In the eventuality that they thought not everyone would get the message in time, they could have opted for any hour, 3am, 4am, whatever, without the oddity of having to say "1 minute past". As an aside, it made me wonder if anyone was actually shot during that extra minute! --Dweller 11:30, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Who can say, Dweller, who can say? One thing is clear, though: given the very nature of the conflict there was never going to be a precise break between war and peace. For instance, the German Army Group Centre was still fighting the Russians in Czechoslovakia as late as 11 May. If you ever visit the German cemetery near Xhania on Crete, you will see that some of the dates recorded on the squat iron-cross headstones show deaths even later than this, though these could, of course, be of soldiers who died of wounds received before the official surrender on 8 May. I remember a story I was told about the precise cessation of hostilities on the Western Front in 1918. Under the terms of the Armistice all engagment was scheduled to cease at 11a.m. precisely on the 11 November. For some hours before that a British unit had been pinned down by a German machine gun company. At exactly 11 o' clock fire ceased, a German officer emerged from the enemy entrenchment, bowed to the British, whereupon his whole company formed ranks and marched off! Clio the Muse 12:55, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
The 1918 armistice is an interesting case. After working through the night, the two sides came to an agreement sometime after 5:00 a.m. British/French time. The document provided for a six-hour delay in order that all units would have time to be notified. Someone then suggested that the time of signature should be recorded as 5:00 exactly, so that hostilities would end at 11:00 exactly (British/French time; noon German time), because that would be a simpler message and would help avoid confusion. Some units reacted to the announcement by firing only if fired upon, others by attacking as hard as they could during the remaining hours, and still others by waiting until 10:59 and then shooting off as much ammunition as they could for one celebratory minute. (Source: November 1918: The Last Act of the Great War, Gordon Brook-Shepherd, 1981, Collins, ISBN 0-00-216558-9; Little, Brown, ISBN 0-316-10960-6).
Incidentally, I have always found it amusing in a black-comedy sort of way that the Western Front was effectively a time zone boundary. It makes me think of someone announcing in a comical accent, "You are now prisoners of the German Reich! Drop your rifles... and set your watches ahead one hour!" --Anonymous, May 9, 2007, 03:025 (UTC).

[edit] Hitler and the holocaust

What evidence is there that hitler ordered the holocaust? when was this order issued? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.176.147.202 (talk) 12:04, 8 May 2007 (UTC).

The articel on [Holocaust] is a good place to start. In particular the section on the Wannsee Conference and the final solution. According to our article, Hitler didn't explicitly order the holocaust, but Himmler, one of his right hand men directly oversaw the task of finding "the final solution" to the Jewish question. Also understand, the Holocaust was not a single event, but a process. First they sterilized the mentally ill, which many reasonable people could argue would be good for society, but by a process of dehumanization and racism lead to a systematic extermination of minority groups. Czmtzc 12:29, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is a copy of an answer that I gave last month, which touches on this question and the nature, and timing, of Hitler's ivolvement. Clio the Muse 12:32, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Subsequent to the above I have now posted the entire thread of 11/12 April, which concerns the precise dating of the Holocuast. Clio the Muse 05:11, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

How Long was the Holocaust?

I'm trying to determine exactly how long the Holocaust lasted- from the time the "Final Solution" was officially adopted by the Nazis to whatever point historians accept as the final day. Is there a way of knowing this with precision? DeepSkyFrontier 18:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It is not completely clear what should be taken as the date of the official adoption; there was no parliament that passed a law on it or such. One possible date you could take is 31 July 1941, when Reichsmarschall Göring authorized the head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt Heydrich to start preparing the Endlösung der Judenfrage (the "Final Solution of the Jewish question"). Another possible date is January 20, 1942, the date the Wannsee Conference was held. But the decision was almost certainly effectively taken earlier by Hitler. If I'm not mistaken, Auschwitz was the last extermination camp to be liberated, which was on January 27, 1945.  --LambiamTalk 19:12, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
(after edit conflict)The decision to kill all the Jews in Europe was probably made in October of 1941 (the decision had already been made in July to kill all the Jews in Russia). However, it wasn't until the Wannsee Conference on January 20th of 1942 that anything remotely concrete was mapped out. Systematic executions began with Operation Reinhard in the spring of 1942, but the Einsatzgruppen had been operating on the eastern front since the early summer of 1941. At the other end, Jews were still being transported to the concentration camps on the day the war ended (May 8, 1945), and many of the prisoners who were alive when the camps were liberated died soon afterwards. In fact, Jews were still being executed at the end of April, and the guards at Mauthausen attempted to organise the murder about 5,000 Jews on May 5. If you have to, you might map the dates of the as being mid-October, 1941 - May 8, 1945. Carom 19:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
The Chełmno extermination camp, a "pilot project" for Operation Reinhard, began operating on December 8, 1941, so it appears the Holocaust had operationally started already before the Wannsee Conference.  --LambiamTalk 20:09, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, you're right about that. It's a tough one to pin down exactly because, as Clio points out below, the Nazis were not initially as organised in their anti-Jewish activities as we tend to think. You could place it as early as June/July of 1941, or as late as December of that year (but I don't know if, in the great scheme, it really matters when the Holocaust "began" - people were being killed all along, whatever we call it). Carom 03:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Here is a copy of an answer I gave back in February-slightly adapted-to a question on the difference between concentration and extermination camp, which, in part, touches on this issue.

On the central point under consideration, there are a number of things that should to be made clear. First and foremost, there was indeed a clear difference in the Nazi scheme of things between concentration camps and Extermination camps, which were built for one purpose, and one purpose only. Concentration camps were located all over Germany and elsewhere in Europe; but extermination centres were located either in areas annexed from Poland, or in the General Government. The first category included Auschwitz-Birkenau and Kulmhof. To these we should probably add the minor camp of Stutthof near Danzig. The second category includes Majdanek, as well as the main Operation Reinhard camps of Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor. Why were these camps established where they were? The simple answer is that they were all close to major Jewish population centres. It would have presented much more severe logistical problems to have transported millions of eastern European Jews to, say, France or any other country in the west. Poland, moreover, had good transport links with the rest of the Continent, and people from France, Holland and elsewhere could be taken with relative ease to the east. The main camps were still fairly remote, and the marshes at Auschwitz offered the opportunity of disposing of tons of human ash. Poland had the additional advantage of being more completely subject to the Nazis than any of the other conquered territories, many of which retained some semblance of self-rule. If anyone wonders why there were so many Jewish people concentrated in Poland it was here that they were officially allowed to settle during the Tsarist days, in the area known as the Pale of Settlement.

On the subject of the Holocaust itself, there seem to be a number of misconceptions. It is important to understand that there was a considerable degree of improvisation in Nazi policy towards the Jews; and as late as 1939 mass migration was still the favoured option, with Madagascar being given serious consideration as a likely destination. Only the outbreak of World War Two put a stop to such plans, which had involved Adolf Eichmann, amongst others. From 1940 onwards the favoured strategy became one of 'ghettoization', with the Jews of western Europe being transported to join pre-existing communities in the east. But up to the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 there was no specific plan for mass murder. The mass killings in fact started in Russia, with the introduction of the Einsatzgruppen, following in the wake of the armies. The favoured methods were gas vans and mass shootings. Nazi policy overall was now taking a far more radical turn; and in December 1941 the first gassings started at Kulmhof, where Jews were transported from the nearby Lodz Ghetto. However, the various strategies were still considered to be too ad hoc, and there were also concerns about the rates of mental breakdown among the SS personnel involved in the field executions in Russia. To remedy this-and to ensure maximum co-ordination amongst all government agencies-the Wannsee Conference was summoned in January 1942. It was from this point forward that the Holocaust, in the sense we understand it today, acquires a much more definte and systematic shape, with the major extermination centres coming into gradual operation. The last mass gassings at Auchwitz came in October 1944; but killing continued, in one form or another, until May 1945. If anyone wishes to pursue the matter in a little more depth there are many fine monographs and studies; but amongst the most accessible, in my estimation, is The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert. Clio the Muse 20:23, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

One minor addendum to Clio's statement: The Einsatzgruppen were actually formed in the early summer of 1939, and employed in the invasion of Poland in the autumn of that year, with essentially a free liscense to execute anyone deemed hostile or dangerous, although actual killings were on a much smaller scale than their later operations in the USSR. They also operated in Western Europe in 1940, although I am reasonably certain that their activities there did not involve mass executions. Carom 22:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I would date the start from Krystalnacht on November 9–10, 1938 and the end to the surrender of Germany in May, 1945. StuRat 04:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


I wish to sincerely thank each of you that contributed to answering my question. I am in awe of what Wikipedia represents in people such as yourselves. Bravo.
Here are the calculations based on the various dates suggested:
Krystalnacht on 9-10 Nov 1938 through German surrender on 7 May 1945: 2372 days.
Göring authorizes preparation of the Final Solution on 31 July 1941 through liberation of Auschwitz on 27 Jan 1945: 1277 days.
Wannsee Conference on 20 Jan 1942 through liberation of Auschwitz on 27 Jan 1945 : 1104 days.
Göring authorizes preparation of Final Solution on 31 July 1941 through German surrender and war's end on 8 May 1945: 1378 days.
Decision of Wannsee Conference on and after 20 Jan 1942 through German surrender and war's end on 8 May 1945: ~1205+ days.
July 1941 decision to kill Russian Jews through German surrender and war's end on 8 May 1945: ~1400 days.
Mid-October 1941 decision to kill all European and Russian Jews through liberation of Auschwitz on 27 Jan 1945: ~1200 days.
Chełmno extermination camp beginning operation on 8 Dec 1941 through last camp executions in late April 1945: ~1235 days
Mid-October 1941 decision to kill all European and Russian Jews through German surrender and war's end on 8 May 1945: ~1300 days.
Mid-October 1941 decision to kill all European and Russian Jews through last camp executions in late April 1945: ~1290 days.
I certainly am not qualified to choose a definitive answer from the options above. I am torn between two starting points. I feel that because ad hoc killing was already taking place that the Wannsee Conference and the days immediately afterwards- when the now official decision was handed down to those that would implement it- may be the appropriate time period to mark the real beginning of the full genocidal horror of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is easier to understand on an individual scale, but it did not exist as singular executions. It existed as the something far more horrible. I feel that it may be a mistake to include ad hoc murder and execution in our best attempt at an accurate understanding. The Wannsee Conference marks the moment when the Nazis became willfully and entirely complicit.
On the other hand, as I read that the conference lasted only 90 minutes, it's clear that the official decision had already been made by Göring and Hitler prior to the conference. The date for the decision, and the fact that it was being carried out with increasing determination even before the conference took place, causes me to lean towards late October / early November of 1941 as the true beginning. I have the feeling that the Wannsee Conference might have been skipped altogether and the outcome would not have been any different.
The decision to kill Russian Jews, which reveals the full capacity of evil contained in Nazi ideology, still stands at counterpoint to the option of deporting European Jews to Madagascar. This idea, which smells a little like red herring from the vantage of history, seems to have existed in some form until it became unworkable due to delays in conquering England and acquiring their fleet. Was it that unorganized killing was damaging to the morale and psyche of those tasked with carrying it out? Was total genocide considered unworkable even as it was considered morally acceptable? At some point Göring and Hitler seem to have realized that systematized execution using extermination camps was actually workable. As I now understand it, that seems to have been around October or November 1941. That, coupled with the beginning of operations at the Chełmno extermination camp on December 8th, 1941, seems to really place the beginning of the Holocaust in the latter part of 1941.
I feel that the end of the camp executions in late April 1945- and not the planned killings of May 5th or the official end of the war on May 8th- mark the end of what I understand to be properly defined as the Holocaust. Those that died after liberation were killed as a consequence of the Holocaust and can not avoid being included in its number. On the other hand, perhaps it is honorable to call them "survivors," if only to have been able to glimpse the downfall of their oppressors. And truly, in consequence the Holocaust is still happening and will continue until the end of time.
I am satisfied that the answer- if there can be one- is somewhere in the vicinity of 1300 days, give-or-take 100 days in either direction. Thank you again, all of you, for your virtuous dedication to answering such questions. Your spirit- the spirit of Wikipedia and the search for truth- stands as a new monument to human civilization that rivals the pyramids. Oh, and I really mean that. DeepSkyFrontier 06:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

You have a cool and dispassionate mind, DeepSkyFrontier, and I admire the logical way that you have arrived at your conclusions. I do, however, have some additional information and argument that might be of interest to you, all of which I have based upon Laurence Rees' monograph, Auschwitz: the Nazis and the Final Solution., in the edition published by BBC Books in 2005

By the spring of 1940 it was becoming increasingly clear that the policy of of using the General Government as a 'racial dustbin' was causing huge logistical problems. In May 1940 Himmler addressed the issue in a wide-ranging memorandum, in which he rejects 'the Bolshevik method of physically exterminating a people as fundamentally un-German.' (Lees, p.45) He goes on to say that I hope to see the term 'Jews' completely eliminated through the possibility of large-scale emigration of all Jews to Africa or to some other colony. When Himmer discussed this proposal with Hitler he was told that it was gut und richtig (good and correct). But, as you indicate, the tenacity of England effectively put an end to all such notions by the autumn and winter of that same year. The problem in the General Government remained, and got steadily worse with the arrival of additional deportees.

Moving further down the line to the summer of 1941, when mass killings were already underway in Russia, we have Göring's memo to Heydrich of 31 July, asking for a blueprint for 'the execution of the intended Final Solution of the Jewish question.' However, as Lees says (p.84), the discovery of a document in the Moscow Special Archive casts some doubt on the particular significance of Göring's memorandum. This contains a note from Heydrich, dated March 26 1941, in which he says With respect to the Jewish question I reported briefly to the Reich Marshal and submitted to him my new blueprint, which he authorized with one modification concerning Rosenberg's jurisdication, and then ordered for resubmission. This document has to be taken in the context of the coming invasion of the Soviet Union-which was expected to collapse in a few weeks-and the continuing deadlock with the British in the west. In other words, the new destination for the Jews of Europe was no longer Africa, but parts of conquered Russia, including areas expected to be under the jurisdiction of Alfred Rosenberg. It seems clear that the 31 July document should be read against the background of forced migration, rather than mass murder as such, though in practical terms the end result would have been just the same, as most of the deportees are likely to have frozen to death in the east with the onset of the Russian winter. However, it was the specific actions of the Einsatzgruppen-particularly in the shooting of women and children-that raised yet another set of problems, and a further quest for solutions. The decisive moment here, it might very well be argued, came in August 1941, when Himmler visited Minsk, and saw the work of the killing squads at first hand.

The Minsk killings, and the complaints, amongst others, of Lieutenant-General von dem Bach-Zelewski, that the sheer personal horror involved was having a severe psychological impact on the men in the Kommandos, pushed Himmler along the path of a less 'bloody' solution to the whole issue. He already had before him one possible 'clinical' way out: mass-killing had already been tried and tested in the euthanasia programme, with poison gas being used to kill as many as ten thousand people in mental hospitals in Wartegau and West Prussia between October 1939 and October 1940. The need for new killing techniques-soon to be explored in places like Auschwitz-,the continuing build up of Jewish deportees in the ghettos of Poland, and the unexpected stubbornness of Soviet resistance, demanded that the whole issue be re-examined from top to bottom. Amongst others, Josef Goebbles, the Propaganda Minister, was lobbying Hitler for more radical solutions, urging the expulsion eastwards of all the Jews of Berlin to already grossly overcrowded ghettos, like that at Lodz. The way out of this deadlock was the authorisation of the first mass gassings at Chelmno, close to Lodz, in late 1941.

Given Hitler's method of working, and his dislike of committing himself to paper, we will never know for certain when outright murder took the place of deportation as the favoured solution to the Jewish question. If I were pushed to choose a specific time-frame, on the basis of the evidence as it presents itself, it would be October 1941. By then the decision had been taken to send all of the Reich's Jews to the east, even though the war with Russia showed no sign of ending. In November, in a conversation with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hitler said that he wanted all Jews, even those not under German control, 'to be destroyed.' (Lees, p. 110) Here, in essence, is the agenda of the Wannsee Conference, where the populations detailed for elimination included those living in areas not even under German control, including England. The following month the gas vans of Chelmno began their work.

Against this whole drift of events and policy, the Wannsee Conference has been allowed to carry far too much weight. The decision on mass extermination, it seems highly likely, was conveyed by verbal insruction alone by Hitler to Himmler sometime in October. Wannsee was merely a forum for ensuring maximum bureaucratic complicity. Those who attended, with the exception of Heydrich (and even he was not yet in the uppermost ranks of the party leadership) were by and large men of the second-division, like Martin Luther from the Foreign Ministry, representing Ribbentrop; senior bureaucratic funtionaries, in other words, implementers of policy, rather than formulators.

Anyway, that's it. Sorry to have gone on at such considerable length, but you have raised issues worthy of a thoughtful and detailed response. Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with. Clio the Muse 10:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

To you, Clio the Muse, I feel such immense gratitude. That you have gone to such great length in fleshing out the path to answering this difficult question. Your apology for doing so is perfectly lovely- like a rose apologizing for it's perfume. You've distinguished yourself among the billions and I hope you live forever. I would hope to live forever too, so that I might see what you can do.
It's a psychological riptide to go from feeling such gratitude to considering the question at hand. I'm trying to find 'Auschwitz: the Nazis and the Final Solution' so that I might read it. It doesn't appear on Amazon, which doesn't bode well for my library having it.
Regarding the Wannsee Conference. I understand a little more about why the Wannsee Conference may be considered of such high importance. The fact that Hitler was not present at the meeting and perhaps the fact that the full genocidal horror-to-come was not specifically spelled-out, seems to have fueled the argument that there was no deliberate policy from the top- a favorite argument of Holocaust deniers. I find the opposite argument to be far more believable- that Hitler's absence only confirms that it was already an official policy. The lack of specifics merely means that specifics had already been determined.
Yes, I am seeing more clearly, with your help, that the official policy of genocide predates Wannsee- and with it the most logical date for the start of the Holocaust. I lean much more strongly towards an October date. November and December seem to contain confirmations that something changed in October.
I do feel that Wannsee deserves to retain its place of great historical importance if for no other reason than the fact that we have data on it- whereas the private conversations and decisions of the highest ranking Nazi officials are relatively opaque. It may be a tendency for those of rudimentary understanding to attribute the Holocaust exclusively to Hitler. Just as dangerous is the mistake of laying blame on the Germans. Perhaps, by focusing on Wannsee, something useful is illuminated- how the few may infect the many when there is a willingness to set morality aside; to place ends above means. Wannsee represents the moment when an already fatal virus mutated into an epidemic.
I once asked a historian to describe how the Jews had managed to survive as a landless nation since the fall of Jerusalem in the 1st Century. The story is incredible. There is not another like it in the history of the world. If the Nazis had heard the story as it was told to me, they could not have considered anything short of annihilation.
The gassing of Jews at Chełmno starting in early December tells me that the Holocaust had already begun- and that it began with the decision to pursue the direct and immediate destruction of all Jews- as opposed to the deportation of Jews to deadly places. The fact that Wannsee was meant to take place earlier and was delayed by the entrance of the U.S. into the war tells me the same thing.
So, here is the answer I am most satisfied with:
Mid-October 1941 decision to kill all European and Russian Jews through last camp executions in late April 1945: ~1290 days.
Reminding you again of how grateful I am for your beautiful and generous spirit is like coming up for air. I hope you don't mind.
I most certainly do not mind, and your tribute overwhelms me, to say the very least. Besides, I too hope I live forever! Clio the Muse 11:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


Clio, could you clarify what you mean by "the policy of of using the General Government as a 'racial dustbin'"? Also, do you have an opinion on Richard Rhodes' book Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust? Thanks. --TotoBaggins 16:27, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi, Toto. The book you need to refer to here is yet another by Laurence Rees-The Nazis: a Warning from History. In one chapter he discusses the policy of 'ethnic cleansing', and how it began to operate soon after the conclusion of the Polish campaign in October 1939. In the annexed areas of West Prussia Berlin encouraged a policy of Germanization, though it was left to the individual Gauleiters how this was to be impemented. Albert Forster, the Gauleiter of Danzig, adopted a fairly 'liberal' approach to the issue, simply reclassifying most of the existing population as German. In contrast, Arthur Greiser, heading the new Reichsgau Wartheland, began a policy of wholesale expulsion of all non-German elements to the General-Government, without proper logistical planning of any kind. By the close of 1940 some 325, 000 people, Poles and Jews, had been ejected from Greiser's fiefdom-many dying en route-, to transit camps, ghettos and the like. The demographic problems caused by the use of General Government in this fashion was made even worse when Berlin started its own policy of mass deportations from Germany and the rest of Europe.
Ah, yes-Richard 'verity' Rhodes. I think he has done some good work in gathering material on the operation of the Einsatzgruppen, and explaining how they fit in to the Holocaust as a whole, though there are some weaknesses in his scholarship and his conclusions. However, where I think the book falls down badly is in its absence of a proper political and ideological explanation for the actions of the men in the Einsatzgruppen in Russia. His use of the kind of 'explanatory paradigm', if I can put it like this, based on a pathology of violence seems to give the whole thing a trans-historical character, suggesting that, if the circumstances were right, this pattern could be repeated virtually anywhere. As a historian, I distrust general explanations and common denominators of all kinds. Clio the Muse 23:26, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, you. --TotoBaggins 01:36, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps it should be made explicit that the General Government was a German occupation government for part of Poland. --Anonymous, May 9, 03:09 (UTC).

I respectfully disagree with the foregoing analysis for the following reasons.

For example, consider the following quotes made by Hitler:

"But he who dares to use the word "God" for such devilish activity blasphemes against Providence and, according to our belief, he cannot end except in destruction". Speaking before the Reichstag about Jews and international "warmongers," - 4 May 1941
"I, for my part, acknowledge another precept which says that man must deal the final blow to those whose downfall is destined by God." Address to the Reichstag, 6 April 1942
"Providence shows no mercy to weak nations, but recognizes the right of existence-only of sound and strong nations." …
"We have suffered so much that it only steels us to fanatical resolve to hate our enemies a thousand times more and to regard them for what they are, destroyers of an eternal culture and annihilators of humanity. Out of this hate a holy will is born to oppose these destroyers of our existence with all the strength that God has given us and to crush them in the end. During its 2,000-year history our people has survived so many terrible times that we have no doubt that we will also master our present plight." - In a recorded radio address, 24 February 1945
(My emphasis)

Interesting. "Destruction", "the final blow", no right of "existence", "crush them" ... it would seem to me that Hitler was quite a bit less reluctant and a quite a bit more enthusiastic about the extermination of the Jews than the above characterization of events would seem to imply. Did Hitler truly believe that Genocide was really all that "un-German"?

Of course the reader will certainly note that the above quotes were made, depending on whatever date one places as the beginning of the Holocaust, only after the Holocaust had begun, or perhaps just slightly before. The reason that he only felt free to express these words when he did is rather obvious. You just can't spring such a genocidal plan on an electorate, or even on your fellow party members, all at once and expect to remain leader of the party and get elected Chancellor. Before Hitler had the power at his disposal, he obviously couldn't speak much of "extermination". It's clear as day to me that he gradually "ramped up" his project of extermination, beginning with relatively vague antisemitic remarks, until the point came when his antisemitic propaganda took hold amongst the populace to a great enough extent that they were finally psychologically prepared to hear such words as I noted above. That was how Hitler operated. It's virtually identical to the way he cleverly and gradually "ramped up" his project of conquering most, if not all of Europe, by beginning with the most arguably reasonable acquisitions that the allies were willing to tolerate, and then, step by step, as his military strength grew, proceeding to the utterly unreasonable ones: first the Rhineland, then Austria, then the Sudetenland, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, the attempts to take Russia and England etc.

Does anyone honestly believe that he was being sincere when he swore to Chamberlain that the Sudetenland/Czechoslovakia was his last ambition, as now he had completely unified all of the German speaking peoples? Does anyone actually believe that Hitler initially intended to abide by the Munich Agreement, only to change his mind about it six months later? Of course not.

Similarly, the whole Madacasgar absurdity was yet another of his ruses. Does anyone honestly believe that once he had the political capital to exterminate the Jews, he rather coincidentally and overnight changed his mind on that one too, by switching 180° from agreeing with Himmler that extermination was completely "un-German", to enthusiastically endorsing extermination as revealed in my above quotes?

I have no doubt in my mind that at the very moment Hitler put his pen to the Munich Agreement, in his mind he was already weighing the alternative military strategies as to how to take Poland. Similarly, when Hitler spoke of some ridiculous "forced emmigration" of the Jews to Madagascar, I have absolutely no doubt that in his mind, at those moments he was pondering the various alternative methods of mass extermination.

With regard to the assertion that the gas chamber and the oven were chosen because they were psychologically less traumatic for Nazi soldiers, I couldn't possibly disagree more. One of the most psychological disturbing aspects of the Holocaust, giving it its outstanding notoriety is indeed the use of the gas chamber and the crematorium. The image of thousands of completely naked human beings being coralled like animals into a death chamber, only to then be cooked in ovens, is, to myself at least, infinitely more psychologically disturbing than the idea of those same individuals being machine gunned and thrown into a mass grave. Yet the above argument asserts that the "gas-and-cook" method was chosen because it was less psychologically traumatic to the German witnesses, and from what I personally infer seems to a statement that it was somehow more humane. To this I leave you the following final quote, from a speech by Hitler dated way back to 1923, a full two decades before the Holocaust reached its absolute height:

"It matters not whether these weapons of ours are humane: if they gain us our freedom, they are justified before our conscience and before our God." Speech in Munich, 1 August 1923

Of course the original analysis may be right and mine may be wrong. Or vice versa. This is just my take on the whole thing. It's now up to the reader to decide which interpretation is more convincing. Lewis 18:18, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide reliable sources for any of your arguments? Hipocrite - «Talk» 11:43, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Why aren't you asking the same of Clio? See my talkpage if you're interested in understanding what I mean by that, as the issue of "sourcing" is a bit off topic here. Lewis 15:29, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Clio provided the basis of her speculation - a reliable secondary source. You did not. Please provide a reliable source that supports your arguments, lest they be disregarded as the uninformed speculation of some guy. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:58, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Are you telling me, then, that you consider the writings of a man who's been repeatedly accused of falsifying history to be a "reliable source"? Do you realize what your implying? By you're criteria, the following sourced response would be far more appropriate than the "uninformed speculation" of little old me:
"Dear Kathy. Your question is an interesting one indeed. Unfortunately, as Harvard History Phd David Hoggan explains in his book: The Myth of the Six Million Los Angeles, California:The Noontide Press, 1969., the Holocaust never actually happened."
I suppose it's unfortunate for me that I don't have a Phd in History from a such a revered institution as Harvard or Cambridge. In contrast to Hoggans, I'm but a mere uninformed speculator. I suppose I just have the wrong letters following my name. Lewis 17:22, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Lewis, this is not a debate. If you cannot provide a source, then you will not provide a source. If you can provide a source, please do. Thanks. Also, please refrain from casting aspersions on Richard Rhodes, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, without noting your aspersions come from the World Socialist Web Site, far left "journalist" and "revisionist historian" James Heartfield, and one politician. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:50, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
No thanks. Lewis 21:18, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Rockpocket and Jack of Oz, I have now posted the entire thread of the debate for 11/12 April, from the original question onwards, which concerns the precise dating of Hitler's order for mass murder. It is not concerned with his anti-semitism as such, which dates back to the very early days of the Nazi Party, but with a particular decision and the exact historical circumstances in which it came about. The quotations by User Loomis, two of which in fact post-date my best 'guesstimate' for the Holocaust order, are therefore utterly and fatuously beside the point. I could provide quote after quote from Hitler from 1920 onwards, none of which would be material to the precise point under consideration, namely a specific order, or set of orders. Hostility towards the Jews was always part of the Nazi programme; mass murder was not. If it was it could be dated to 30 January 1933 or 1 September 1939. If we simply scream in an irrational fashion that the Nazis wanted killing, and always wanted killing; if we abandon all attempts at serious scholarly analysis, then we might as well concede the high ground to David Irving and all of the other Holocaust deniers, because they will occupy it with alacrity, pointing out all of the historical inconsistencies in an argument without detailed foundation. I am a scholar, I think in a scholarly way and I react in a scholarly way. I base all my arguments on specific data and precise investigation, and will never surrender to the rant and the broadside. If I do, if all scholars do, then everything is lost. Clio the Muse 06:08, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The above is an extract from a statement I made, addressed to other editors, and posted on User Loomis' talk page by way of information and correction. I have very little to add, other than to stress, yet again, that I am a scholar and historian, and as such, like all historians, have to base my arguments and deductions on specific sources, of a primary or a secondary nature. I am neither a psychic, a medium nor a magician, and thus have no access to the contents of Hitler's mind. I can only proceed by what documents and eye-witness accounts reveal about his aims and intentions. I take note that others do seem to have such access to the mind of a man who has been dead for over sixty years. It is indeed up to the reader to draw their own conclusions over which is more convincing, reasoned deduction or empty speculation. Beyond that I have nothing more to say, and will respond to no further contributions by User Loomis. Clio the Muse 19:15, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fund managers bound to maximize profit?

A quote from a NYT article (Businesses Try to Make Money and Save the World [1], May 7 2007) in the context of investment in enterprises providing exclusively social benefits, reads:

"fiduciary obligations prevent asset managers from making investments with any aim other than maximizing profit"

What are the specific laws/obligations applying to US asset managers? Are there similar laws in other developed countries such as UK, EU, Japan, Canada, Australia?--124.189.146.27 12:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

To my knowledge, in the US there is no such law beyond fulfilling one's fiduciary duties. If you don't you may be subject to a lawsuit by the principal. --TotoBaggins 16:32, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

(Edit conf.)Is there a specific category of obligations you are thinking about? Your question is pretty broad. So broad in fact that there are people who bill hundreds of dollars per hour simply to know and deliver a coherent answer.

In general, Fiduciary responsibility requires a very strict standard of care and is intended to provide rigorous protections against, (and harsh penalties for), breaches of that duty: viz. fraud, conflict of interest, negligence, misrepresentation and various other acts of (mal|mis)feasance.

In the capital markets, this duty is codified and applied to fund managers by many state and federal laws and regulations, such as those promulgated by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. In other developed countries, related laws are also similarly administered. (See e.g., Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission, Bank of Japan; Autorité des marchés financiers, France; Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores, Spain; and many others). dr.ef.tymac 16:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Of course as Milton Friedman would say 'saving the world' and profit are not opposites. All giving by corporations/fund managers (and the like) should be cynical, designed to increase profits - it's not important 'why' you are giving (though he notes many are obsessed with only 'good' giving being considered worthy). Anyhoo enough free-market supply side promotional content...Think of it logically. The fund manager's role is to manager the fund in the interests of those invested into the fund (to maximise returns), were that fund manager to use the money purposefully to reduce profits because "it helps others" he would be spending not his money, but the investors. He would be giving not his money but someone elses. His responsibility is to the owners of that money. Of course many ethical funds exist across the investment market and many corporations/firms have a history of charitable donations. Investors aren't monsters, but I find that people seem more willing to expect person X to pay for what they want to see (often citing wealth as justification) than they are themselves. ny156uk 22:16, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Iraq conflict

Sensibly speaking, what's going on in Iraq right now doesn't really strike me as being a 'war' per se. Is there a more accurate descriptor? -- the best I can come up with is 'drama'. When I think of a war I think of two countries at each other's throats, but in Iraq, the majority of citizens seem quite happy with the US's presence. Vranak

I don't know about them being "quite happy". Only the Kurds really fit that description. In any case, insurgency? Guerrilla war? Clarityfiend 17:15, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
A poll published in September found that Iraqis believe, by a margin of 78 to 21 percent, that the US military presence is "provoking more conflict that it is preventing"....[2]  --LambiamTalk 20:23, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


American invasion and occupation, maybe.--Sonjaaa 20:43, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

You call it a 'conflict' that is perhaps the best term. There are fears it could become a full-scale civil war. I suspect those more politically against the war would consider it an invasion and those in favour perhaps a liberation? As with most wars it depends on your viewpoint to whether you frame it positively, negatively or based on law. I guess there is some form of naming convention used for conflicts but I am not aware of it. ny156uk 22:07, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

but in Iraq, the majority of citizens seem quite happy with the US's presence. - Vranak

[Enter Sarcasm Mode] I agree with you 100% , in fact during World War II on the island of Singapore the majority of citizens seem quite happy with the Japanese army's presence. In fact all the Newspapers, Magazines and Radio stations in Japan say so. So it must be true. Of course no Japanese Citizens in Japan would stoop so low as to actually ask the citizens of Singapore. Oh! I forgot, Japanese Citizens in Japan cannot speak any of the languages in Singapore. So they must trust what the media in Japan tells them.

[Hint] Replace 'Singapore' with 'Iraq'
[Hint] Replace 'Japanese Army' with 'American Army'
[Hint] Replace 'Japanese' with 'American'
[Hint] Replace 'Japan' with 'USA'
211.28.127.82 22:32, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
The Japanese are in favour of who? Miremare 23:08, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
To be fair, at least some of the U.S. media (such as National Public Radio) do report Iraqi public opinion polls indicating that an overwhelming majority of Iraqis want the U.S. troops to go. Assuming that Vranak is American, perhaps he has not been following this closely. Marco polo 00:50, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Actually I'm Canadian. My assessment is based on PBS documentaries. Most of the Iraqis in it didn't seem to be harbouring any resentment, even those being interrogated. Vranak
Since this question calls for opinion, I have answered here: [3]. StuRat 03:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • How about "police action" like that popular little kerfuffle in Vietnam?hotclaws 09:25, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, police action is exactly what we should be calling the "war" in Iraq. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Coolotter88 (talk • contribs) 10:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC).
  • Were it not for the fact that the US military is not the police, "police action" would probably be a useful term, especially since the recent "surge" in troops was billed as "Operation Impose Law". It was apparently changed later when someone discovered that the initials for the operation were O.I.L. Corvus cornix 20:19, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • LOL, that is amusing. Do you have a source ? (Not because I doubt your word, but because I'd like to pass that info on, along with a source.) StuRat 01:09, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Engagement

what was the engagement and how did it lead to the death of Charles I. Martinben 20:57, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Could we start with a specific country, and the type of engagement (martial or marital)? --Bielle 23:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The Engagement was a treaty between Charles I and the Scottish Presbyterians, known as the Covenanters, whereby the king promised to implement Presbyterianism in England for a three-year trial period, and to suppress the radical sects, in return for the aid of a Scottish army against his enemies in Parliament. The roots of the bargain go back to the conclusion of the First English Civil War in 1646. Although the Royalists had lost the war Charles still believed he could win the peace. While a prisoner of Parliament, and then the New Model Army, Charles continued to play one side off against the other, rejecting proposal after proposal for a political solution to England's constitutional deadlock. In the end he was approached by a faction in the Scottish government, former allies of Parliament in the First Civil War, but now increasingly worried by the steady growth of political and religious radicalism in England. Charles' agreement with the Scots, concluded at Carisbrooke Castle in December 1647, was an important factor leading to the outbreak of the Second English Civil War in 1648. The Scots duly invaded, but only after much delay caused by political disputes at home, and their army was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell in August 1648 at the Battle of Preston. The King's duplicity was a source of great resentment among the ranks of the New Model Army, and he began to be referred to as 'Charles Stuart, the man of blood.' There was still a faction in Parliament, headed by the English Presbyterians, in favour of further negotiation with the King; but Cromwell and the radicals in the army decided that the only way out of the impasse was to remove him altogether. In December, Colonel Thomas Pride, comanding a company of soldiers, prevented the Presbyterian MPs from entering the Commons, an episode known thereafter as Pride's Purge. The remainder, known as the Rump, voted to put the king on trial for his life. The process duly opened in January 1649, with execution following on the penultimate day of the month. The King was dead, and England was now a republic. Clio the Muse 00:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Just in case anyone the questioner doesn't know what the word means, the "penultimate" day of the month is the second-last day, ie. 30 January 1649. JackofOz 00:17, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
And Clio, the amazingly well read, needs no clues at all. Well done, Clio! --Bielle 01:21, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
You are very kind, Bielle (and I am amazingly well-read!), but the clues here for me were really in the question: as a student of seventeenth century English history serious questions would have been raised had I not known the link between 'the engagement' and 'the death of Charles I.' Clio the Muse 05:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
No need to have such high expectations of yourself, Clio. No such "serious questions" would have been raised by anyone here.  :) JackofOz 05:50, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, this is true, Jack, although my expecations have always been high. Besides, I've had knives at my back so often that defence has become my middle name! Clio the Muse 10:44, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ancient Rome

Hi there, I have 8 questions on Ancient Rome.

A)How have the burial tombs of the Etruscans helped to shed light on their lives?

B)How did the Etruscans influence Roman society?

C)How did the structure of the Roman Repupbican government attempt to balance power between the patricians and the plebians?

D)List three reasons Rome sought to establish colonies throughout the Mediterranean?

E)What reforms did the Gracchus brothers attempt to implement? Why were they unsuccessful?

F)How did the rise of strong generals contribute to the demise of the Roman Republic?

G)How did life during the Roman Republic differ for males and females in duties in the homes, rights within marriage and education?

H)Why is Roman architecture said to be a fusion of Greek style and Roman innovation?

If you going to answer these questions by telling me to read the article, please tell me which word begins the sentence, which word ends the sentence and put articles name on it and the line number under each question. Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.64.139.36 (talk) 23:23, 8 May 2007 (UTC).

You need a servant to take this to the Homework Desk for you. All the servants seem to have left for the day. --Bielle 23:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I think, 76.64, you were the person who, not so long ago, was asking for information on virtually the whole course of ancient Greek politics, phliosophy, literature and poetry? Now you have moved on to the Roman Republic. This cannot, surely, be a set of homework questions, or if it is it brings to my mind an examiner of Dickensian cruelty (perhaps Mr Murdstone? Just think, all those double-Gloucester cheeses!). Anyway, please look at the linked page, which should provide you with most of the leads you need. It might help you better in future if you came back with a much more specific and stream-lined question. To cover everything you are looking for here would demand an immense and highly-detailed answer. In my experience the 'scatter-gun' approach tends to elicit a poorish response. Clio the Muse 05:51, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Clio, this sounds for all the world like a "World History I" sort of thing. You know -- from Cro Magnon to Crimean War in 15 weeks? Its cousin is the "Beowulf to Toni Morrison in 15 weeks" approach to literature. Cruise the entire ocean of time, but always across the surface. Utgard Loki 14:40, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
If it's Tuesday it must be the Holy Roman Empire! Yes, I know exactly what you mean, Utgard Loki, having once trotted my way through H. G. Wells (not recommended!). Clio the Muse 15:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
E) - See Duck Soup. I may be confused, though. --Dweller 10:31, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I'll try. Let's see:

How have the burial tombs of the Etruscans helped to shed light on their lives?

By interpretation of tomb art. The art in Etruscan tombs is one of the few relics remaining from Etruscan times

B)How did the Etruscans influence Roman society?

The early rulers of Rome were Etruscan. Before Rome became a power in itself, Etruria was the dominant power in central Italy.

C)How did the structure of the Roman Repupbican government attempt to balance power between the patricians and the plebians?

This is a complicated question becuase the situation changed throughout history, but in brief: At first the plebeians had almost no rights. They threatened to secede from Rome (since the city needed a lower class to do all the menial work and thus would accede to their demands). Thus, the tribunes of the plebs were created, who could veto legislation. Two of the aediles also had to be chosen from the plebeian class. Finally, there was a special voting assembly just for plebeians (concilium plebis) which eventually attained legislative power in the 3rd century BC.

D)List three reasons Rome sought to establish colonies throughout the Mediterranean?

Gaining economic wealth, extending military power, removing threats to Rome (such as Carthage), food supply to the huge population of Rome (thus the importance of Egypt's fertile Nile Valley). Yes, I know that's four reasons.

E)What reforms did the Gracchus brothers attempt to implement? Why were they unsuccessful?

They tried to instigate various economic reforms, mostly focusing on land redistribution. The opposition of the powerful classes led to the demise of the program and the death of the Gracchi.


F)How did the rise of strong generals contribute to the demise of the Roman Republic?

Any general who commanded the army could simply invade Rome and force the Senate to grant him power legally. Sulla, Pompey the Great, and Julius Caesar are some of the generals who did so.

G)How did life during the Roman Republic differ for males and females in duties in the homes,

Men largely worked outside the home. Women did most of the work, or, in richer families, the mateframilias (female head of household) managed the slaves who did the actual work.
rights within marriage
There were many types of Roman marriage, but for this purpose, only two need to be considered: marriage cum manu and sine manu. In marriage cum manu, the husband achieved legal power over his wife. She could not divorce him, while he could divorce her. Sine manu, the bride remained legally a member of her father's family and could divorce her husband.

and education?

Boys generally were the only ones to receive a full education, while women were taught only necessary skills.

Vultur 23:01, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help identifying this (outsider) art

Hey, I'm looking for the artist who made these paintings http://img130.imageshack.us/my.php?image=oa1gf3.jpg http://img181.imageshack.us/my.php?image=oa2iv0.jpg Supposedly the artist was a mental patient when he made this, though I'm not sure if this is true. I've done a brief search through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Outsider_artists but couldn't found anything of the same style. Can anyone help me with this? --86.87.66.216 23:27, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Muslim militias

How many Shi'a and Sunni militias does Iran support? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.64.139.36 (talk) 23:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC).

Presumably you are asking about Iraq. No one knows for sure how many Shi'a or Sunni militias there are in Iraq, so it is impossible to know how many Iran supports. Iranian ties have been alleged for at least two Shi'a militias, the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade. However, these ties have not been independently confirmed for the Mahdi Army. (U.S. intelligence has asserted such ties, but U.S. intelligence has not been reliable on Middle Eastern affairs.) Iran is unlikely to support Sunni militias, since Iran's government is Shi'a and Sunnis are generally opposed to Iranian influence in Iraq. Outside of Iraq, Iran is believed to support the mainly Shi'a Hezbollah militia. U.S. intelligence claims Iranian funding for the mainly Sunni Hamas organization. Marco polo 01:12, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
The Sunni insurgents are being funded and trained by Saudi Arabia, but you never hear the US government making any threats towards the Saudis, even though more Americans are killed by Sunni insurgents than by Shiite. Corvus cornix 21:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)